White, James – Sector General 10 – Final Diagnosis

Danalta was a polymorph who could make itself look like anything or anyone, and it loved to show off. But when it was the shape-changer’s turn to watch over him, especially when he was expected to sleep and not talk, it sat on the deck by his bedside like a lumpy, green pear that was featureless except for the single, large eye and ear that it extruded for the purpose.

Except for the natural sleeping periods prescribed for Earthhuman DBDG patients, he was not confined to bed.

During his first day on board, there was one very thorough physical examination, which included the withdrawal of tissue and blood specimens. While it was being done, the entire medical team stood and hovered around his bed, displaying a degree of readiness that was hair-raising in its implications while radiating a level of anxiety that even he could feel, in case he reacted in some clinically melodramatic fashion. Apart from that one examination nothing whatever was done for or to him and, because he had not reacted in any fashion whatever, they spent the next two days asking him endless questions while trying to avoid answering his.

Pathologist Murchison was a fellow Earth-human as well as being closer in personality and appearance to Hewlitt’s idea of what a medical guardian angel should look like. The next time she was on casualty watch, he tried to start a polite argument with her in the hope that she, at least, would let something slip that would tell him what they were planning to do with him.

Hewlitt knew that he did not have to control his irritation because Prilicla was resting in its cabin and out of empathic range. He began, “Everyone seems to be asking me the same questions that Medalont and all my other doctors have already asked many times, and I am giving the same answers. I’d like to help if I can, but how? You won’t answer questions or tell me anything at all about my condition. What do you think is wrong with me, and why won’t you tell me what you are trying to do about it?”

The pathologist swung around in her seat at the diagnostic console and looked away from its big viewscreen, which had been displaying a succession of still images that resembled the top surfaces of slabs of pink and purple-veined marble, but were more likely to be sections of other-species tissue with something nasty wrong with them. Maybe, Hewlitt thought, she had been expecting the pictures to bore him to sleep.

She gave a long sigh, and said, “This information would have been given to you during the post-landing briefing tomorrow but, seeing that there has been no change in your clinical condition over the past three days, there is no good reason for keeping it from you until then. You will not like the answers I give you because …

“Is, is it bad news?” he broke in. “I’d rather know the worst. I think.”

“If you want answers,” she said, “don’t interrupt. This is embarrassing for me as it is.”

Embarrassing for you, Hewlitt thought. He said, “I’m sorry, please go on.

She nodded, then said, “It is not good news, or bad news, it is no news. First, we kept asking the same questions in the hope that you would tell us something new, something you omitted to tell Medalont or the others, something that we can believe and act upon. According to Prilicla, your emotional radiation indicates that you are not consciously lying, but the truth you are telling us is not helpful at all. Your second question, what is wrong with you. Well, so far as we have been able to discover, you are not only well, you are an unusually fit and healthy specimen of an Earth-human male DBDG. The answer is that nothing is wrong with you.

She took a deep breath that expanded the spectacular chest inside her tight, white coveralls, further reminding him that he was a healthy male, and went on, “That being the case, Patient Hewlitt, we should declare you a healthy hypochondriac with psychological problems and tell you to go home and stop wasting our time as many of your other medics have done in the past … .”